Docs urge Mamata to take up NEET issue with Centre

Many doctors’ association have also raised question when the NEET has been implementing this year to admit the successful candidates to various Centre owned medical colleges and private medical colleges why the premier institutions like the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER) have been kept out of the ambit of NEET. 

Various doctors’ organisations and the guardians of the medical aspirants in the state urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also in-charge of the health ministry, to take up the issue with the Centre so that the state can be allowed to hold its own medical admission from the next year as well. 

Otherwise, nearly 70,000 medical aspirants from across the state would be greatly inconvenienced if the NEET is conducted in the state from the next year. There are several reasons behind it. 

Meanwhile, the state government is conducting its own entrance examination after the Centre exempted it from holding NEET by bringing ordinance partially overturning the Supreme Court order that ordered for the implementation of NEET in all states from this year. 

Experts feel that in a country like India where people speak so many languages, their culture climate and socio-economic conditions are different, it would be impossible to conduct the single level entrance test. 

The quality of the students could not judged through a single entrance examinations. Even the Central Board of Secondary Education who is assigned by the Centre to conduct the examination is not fully equipped to conduct the examination throughout the country. It will also be difficult for them to take the examination where around 12 lakh medical aspirants will take part across the country.

It may also be mentioned here that the AIIMS has conducted its own medical entrance examination throughout the country for the admission to undergraduate medical courses while JIPMER will hold its medical entrance examination on next Sunday. 

A question now arises how these Centre-owned institute can hold their own examination when the single examination, NEET is being implemented. Have they got any constitutional safeguard, many have raised the question, as neither the ordinance issued by the Centre mentioned that they will hold their own entrance examination this year nor the Supreme Court had issued any order exempting them to keep themselves out of the NEET ambit.

 

The states like Jammu and Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh that enjoy some provisions under article 370 and 371/D respectively have also been included within the ambit of NEET. 

Incidentally, it may be mentioned that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha had also already urged the Centre so that her state can hold their entrance examinations from 2017.